Sweetheart of the Rodeo

1	You Ain't Going Nowhere 2:38
2	I Am a Pilgrim 3:42
3	The Christian Life 2:33
4	You Don't Miss Your Water 3:51
5	You're Still on My Mind 2:26
6	Pretty Boy Floyd 2:37
7	Hickory Wind 3:34
8	One Hundred Years from Now 2:43
9	Blue Canadian Rockies 2:05
10	Life in Prison 2:47
11	Nothing Was Delivered 3:34
12	You Got a Reputation Bonus Track 3:10
13	Lazy Days Bonus Track 3:29
14	Pretty Polly Bonus Track 2:56
15	The Christian Life previously unreleased / Bonus Track / Rehearsal - Take #11 2:58
16	Life in Prison previously unreleased / Bonus Track / Rehearsal - Take #11 3:01
17	You're Still on My Mind previously unreleased / Bonus Track / Rehearsal - Take #43 2:31
18	One Hundred Years from Now previously unreleased / Bonus Track / Rehearsal - Take #2 3:23
19	All I Have Are Memories previously unreleased / Bonus Track / Instrumental 4:47

Barnes & Noble

For all intents and purposes, this is where country rock begins. All kinds of performers (Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams, Chris Isaak, Cheri Knight, Steve Earle, Wilco, and the denizens of the Hotel California) have drawn -- in spirit if not in song structure -- from the merger of the two seemingly contradictory genres found on this landmark 1968 recording. The Byrds had hinted at an interest in traditional country music during their previous recordings, but the arrival of Gram Parsons (replacing David Crosby) made the shift toward Nashville a feasible one. Pedal steel guitar replaces the Rickenbacker 12-string as the backbone of their sound, and they covered the Louvin Brothers' "The Christian Life" and Merle Haggard's "Life in Prison" alongside two Bob Dylan tunes, "You Ain't Going Nowhere" and "Nothing Was Delivered." The 1997 reissue of this recording includes alternate takes of several tracks with Parsons on lead vocals. Before long, however, Parsons and charter member Chris Hillman broke to form the Flying Burrito Brothers, leaving Jim McGuinn to soldier on. The Byrds continued to make fine recordings, especially 1970's Ballad of Easy Rider, but Sweetheart of the Rodeo remains their most influential disc. Martin Johnson

All Music Guide

The Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo was not the first important country-rock album (Gram Parsons managed that feat with The International Submarine Band's debut Safe at Home), and the Byrds were hardly strangers to country music, dipping their toes in the twangy stuff as early as their second album. But no major band had gone so deep into the sound and feeling of classic country (without parody or condescension) as the Byrds did on Sweetheart; at a time when most rock fans viewed country as a musical "L'il Abner" routine, the Byrds dared to declare that C&W could be hip, cool, and heartfelt. Though Gram Parsons had joined the band as a pianist and lead guitarist, his deep love of C&W soon took hold, and Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman followed his lead; significantly, the only two original songs on the album were both written by Parsons (the achingly beautiful "Hickory Wind" and "One Hundred Years from Now"), while on the rest of the set classic tunes by Merle Haggard, the Louvin Brothers, and Woody Guthrie were sandwiched between a pair of twanged-up Bob Dylan compositions. While many cite this as more of a Gram Parsons album than a Byrds set, given the strong country influence of McGuinn's and Hillman's later work, it's obvious Parsons didn't impose a style upon this band so much as he tapped into a sound that was already there, waiting to be released. If the Byrds didn't do country-rock first, they did it brilliantly, and few albums in the style are as beautiful and emotionally affecting as this. [Columbia's 1997 CD reissue of the album improves on the masterpiece by adding eight strong bonus tracks, including four cuts with Gram Parsons singing lead trimmed from the original release for legal reasons.] Mark Deming